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Owzabout That Then? The Jimmy Savile Revelations & Aftermath

My Mum had a rather dim view of the man and his proclivities - this was early 1970's.

Which gets me wondering, how did a middle-aged woman out here in Australia know about someone like him, at that time (we left the UK in 1961).

When did his...activities become public knowledge? Anyone?
In the early '70s Savile brought out an autobiography which was serialised in a Sunday newspaper.

It included accounts of incidents like the infamous 'missing girl' episode, when Savile was asked by the police to look out for a teenage girl who'd wandered off.

He agreed to return her if she turned up on condition he could keep her overnight himself.

I read that as a young teenager myself and hated his guts from then on. Maybe your mother did too?
 
It included accounts of incidents like the infamous 'missing girl' episode, when Savile was asked by the police to look out for a teenage girl who'd wandered off.

He agreed to return her if she turned up on condition he could keep her overnight himself.
He admitted that himself? :wide:
 
In the early '70s Savile brought out an autobiography which was serialised in a Sunday newspaper.

It included accounts of incidents like the infamous 'missing girl' episode, when Savile was asked by the police to look out for a teenage girl who'd wandered off.

He agreed to return her if she turned up on condition he could keep her overnight himself.

I read that as a young teenager myself and hated his guts from then on. Maybe your mother did too?


Light. Dawneth.


I gather he wasn't joking? (What a fucking horror...)
 
In the Louis Theroux documentary, his domestic arrangements were depicted as very austere. He never cooked, for instance.

He infamously carried a pint glass with him in which he would pour a can of baked beans and microwave it.
Said it was all he needed for his evening meal.

Control freak for sure - when his PA said she was getting married he offered to pay for the reception, but then made it all about himself with a grand entrance etc.
 
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In the early '70s Savile brought out an autobiography which was serialised in a Sunday newspaper.

It included accounts of incidents like the infamous 'missing girl' episode, when Savile was asked by the police to look out for a teenage girl who'd wandered off.

He agreed to return her if she turned up on condition he could keep her overnight himself.

I read that as a young teenager myself and hated his guts from then on. Maybe your mother did too?
I still can't fathom how he was able to get so many people not just to turn a blind eye but to actively collaborate in episodes like this. I remember another episode described in the Dan Davies biography whereby Savile was invited to MC some charity event in Ilkley. One of Savile's stipulations was that he was to be given a tent on Ilkley Moor, along with some teenage girls to share it with. If memory serves, not only did the stout aldermen of Ilkley agree to this, they even sent their own young female relatives along. Just awful, awful stuff. Why would anyone agree to that? I used to be a specialist in Russian history, which is not short of grim episodes in its own right.
For example, the head of the NKVD under Stalin was a contemptible individual called Beria, who had a predilection for underage girls. He used to force his underlings to make their family members available to him. Now, Beria commanded a secret police force and an entire apparatus of state terror. You could imagine how that would create an impossible dilemma.
But what leverage did Savile have?
 
He admitted that himself? :wide:
He also stated in a television interview that he was sure that God would forgive him for his "dalliances" with "young ladies".

I suspect that his "powerful friends" and his alleged influence and leverage was all in his mind. Probably came to believe it himself, though. If you have a very strong personality and ego, it's very easy to bluff the naïve . I've known a few people like that - underneath the bluff there is a basically a none entity. It's a great shame that he was not publicly disgraced whilst he was alive.
Of course now there have been allegations against other UK film and tv personalities who are long dead. One hopes in the future that these type of characters can be brought to justice whilst still alive, giving the victims at least some sort of recognition. I'm not holding my breath though.
 
I suspect that his "powerful friends" and his alleged influence and leverage was all in his mind.

Yup, he did believe he had powerful friends, or perhaps they were people in boats which they wouldn't want rocking.
For example, he mentioned taking half a police station down with him if he got into trouble over his activities with underage girls. He was good at compromising people to keep them quiet.

As you say, these people might not have been his friends. They were actually just keen to keep things under wraps. If scandals had come out Savile's 'friends' would have thrown him STRAIGHT under the bus.

There were also his royal connections. He was pals with Prince Charles, though everyone except Bigears himself was creeped out by Savile's behaviour on visits -

Jimmy Savile caused concern with behaviour on visits to Prince Charles

A former senior royal aide has revealed that Jimmy Savile's behaviour when he visited Prince Charles's official home at St James' Palace was a cause for "concern and suspicion".

Dickie Arbiter, who handled media relations for the Prince and Princess of Wales while spokesman for the Queen between 1988 and 2000, said the suspected paedophile TV presenter used to rub his lips up the arms of Prince Charles's young female assistants as a greeting.

He was so flesh-crawlingly vile.
 
I used to be a specialist in Russian history, which is not short of grim episodes in its own right.
For example, the head of the NKVD under Stalin was a contemptible individual called Beria, who had a predilection for underage girls. He used to force his underlings to make their family members available to him. Now, Beria commanded a secret police force and an entire apparatus of state terror. You could imagine how that would create an impossible dilemma.
Off topic but I suspect Beria may have been a serial killer as well as serial rapist - didn't they find human remains on the grounds of his house?
 
Off topic but I suspect Beria may have been a serial killer as well as serial rapist - didn't they find human remains on the grounds of his house?

Was it Beria that there was a grim joke about?
When you knocked on his office door, he didn't say 'Come in!' but 'Bring him in!' because there'd always be someone about to be questioned.
 
Off topic but I suspect Beria may have been a serial killer as well as serial rapist - didn't they find human remains on the grounds of his house?

Didn't know about the human remains. I wonder what the story is there? People 'disappearing'. Families never hearing from them again. Such cruelty.
 
Off topic but I suspect Beria may have been a serial killer as well as serial rapist - didn't they find human remains on the grounds of his house?

On a more Fortean level, Beria's old mansion in Moscow is now the Tunisian Embassy. Apparently, they have filed for a change of location on account of ghostly goings on there and a general bad atmosphere. Number 4 in the list below:

https://lets-travel-more.com/6-haunted-places-to-visit-in-moscow/

Not mentioned in that piece is the local rumour/urban legend that, late at night, an old fashioned spectral black car, of the kind Beria once was driven in, is sometimes seen cruising around the city....
 
Nail on the head there! Savile didn't need a lavish lifestyle.
Except for his liking of Rolls Royce cars- he owned a few over the years and had more than one personal number plate. After his death and before the allegations came to light, his last Roller was sold at a charity auction, the unfortunate buyer paying £160,000 for it. (it was special). Now of course no one will touch it apparently, so it's worthless. At the end of last year the owner of the creep's last personal plate JS 247 tried to sell it for £20,000 ish, without success.

Thinking about it recently Savile must have lead a very very strange life. You would imagine that anyone in his shoes would be continually looking over his shoulder for the Police, or an irate victim or relative, but having got away with his criminality for over 50 years, he probably convinced himself he was immune. I do remember in the 70's though that a fellow wrestler beat the crap out of him for some reason. There may have been other incidents of course which were covered up.
 
Off topic but I suspect Beria may have been a serial killer as well as serial rapist - didn't they find human remains on the grounds of his house?
It seems a bit weird to think in those terms: the USSR, especially in the three decades between the 1930s and 1950s, was something of an institutionalised serial killing machine. It bears repeating that the academic consensus is that the regime killed around 20 million of its own citizens in the GULAG. Which is about the same number who died as the result of industrialised warfare carried out by an enemy who saw them as subhuman.

And yet I see what you mean: Beria certainly seems like the sort of person who would have taken full advantage of his position to indulge unspeakable appetites. Brave local researchers report that the mass graves of Stalinist terror victims they uncover are full of vodka bottles as well as corpses: it was the only way that the poor sods tasked with disposal of the bodies could numb themselves to the horror. Beria, on the other hand, would most likely have been sipping a nice Chianti. I'll be honest, I don't really want to go back and wade through the details to see whether or not there is confirmation of your speculation, although I would not be at all surprised. There's not enough mindbleach in the world.
 
It seems a bit weird to think in those terms: the USSR, especially in the three decades between the 1930s and 1950s, was something of an institutionalised serial killing machine. It bears repeating that the academic consensus is that the regime killed around 20 million of its own citizens in the GULAG. Which is about the same number who died as the result of industrialised warfare carried out by an enemy who saw them as subhuman.

And yet I see what you mean: Beria certainly seems like the sort of person who would have taken full advantage of his position to indulge unspeakable appetites. Brave local researchers report that the mass graves of Stalinist terror victims they uncover are full of vodka bottles as well as corpses: it was the only way that the poor sods tasked with disposal of the bodies could numb themselves to the horror. Beria, on the other hand, would most likely have been sipping a nice Chianti. I'll be honest, I don't really want to go back and wade through the details to see whether or not there is confirmation of your speculation, although I would not be at all surprised. There's not enough mindbleach in the world.
Hey, yes I'm using 'serial killer' in the loose pop cultural sense of someone who commits a series of murders for sexual gratification. It's terrifying when someone with those proclivities gets into an untouchable position of power: a comparison might be Uday Hussein, who was certainly a serial rapist.
 
Hey, yes I'm using 'serial killer' in the loose pop cultural sense of someone who commits a series of murders for sexual gratification. It's terrifying when someone with those proclivities gets into an untouchable position of power: a comparison might be Uday Hussein, who was certainly a serial rapist.
Again, I don't want to go into any detail about it, but my description of the USSR as an institutionalised serial killer is not at odds with your pop cultural sense: given that prisons were mixed, and political prisoners were - deliberately, and with malice aforethought - imprisoned alongside criminal convicts, the female experience of the Gulag was orders of magnitude worse.
 
Except for his liking of Rolls Royce cars- he owned a few over the years and had more than one personal number plate. After his death and before the allegations came to light, his last Roller was sold at a charity auction, the unfortunate buyer paying £160,000 for it. (it was special). Now of course no one will touch it apparently, so it's worthless. At the end of last year the owner of the creep's last personal plate JS 247 tried to sell it for £20,000 ish, without success.

Thinking about it recently Savile must have lead a very very strange life. You would imagine that anyone in his shoes would be continually looking over his shoulder for the Police, or an irate victim or relative, but having got away with his criminality for over 50 years, he probably convinced himself he was immune. I do remember in the 70's though that a fellow wrestler beat the crap out of him for some reason. There may have been other incidents of course which were covered up.

The wrestling was weird. While Savile reckoned he was crap at it and took a lot of good 'idings he didn't abandon it until he found a more lucrative occupation. I heard him talk about this on TV and wondered why he'd bring it up and admit to being a failure at it.

Maybe it was a way of looking humble and approachable? Nothing Savile ever said in public was offhand or unplanned. He was careful of his image.

The posh cars seem to be his main luxury. Driving a Rolls looked impressive. He is known to have offered girls rides and abused them in the cars. The worthless personalised numberplate is funny!
 
The wrestling was weird. While Savile reckoned he was crap at it and took a lot of good 'idings he didn't abandon it until he found a more lucrative occupation. I heard him talk about this on TV and wondered why he'd bring it up and admit to being a failure at it.

Maybe it was a way of looking humble and approachable? Nothing Savile ever said in public was offhand or unplanned. He was careful of his image.

The posh cars seem to be his main luxury. Driving a Rolls looked impressive. He is known to have offered girls rides and abused them in the cars. The worthless personalised numberplate is funny!
Saw him several times around Leeds with a "passenger". Yuck.
 
You would imagine that anyone in his shoes would be continually looking over his shoulder for the Police, or an irate victim or relative, but having got away with his criminality for over 50 years, he probably convinced himself he was immune. I do remember in the 70's though that a fellow wrestler beat the crap out of him for some reason. There may have been other incidents of course which were covered up.

It is possible he had "connections" with other paedophiles in positions of authority who could protect him, but it has never been proven.

I think a particular combination of circumstances enabled his activities-

He was predatory in the days when CCTV was not so prevalent.
He was predatory in the days when there was a showbiz culture of "touchy feely", before #metoo and before modern safeguarding.
He never owned a computer - he knew that someone cleverer than him would be able to track his browsing or social media history.
He created a media image - a great "personality" and charity fundraiser whom people would look initially forward to visiting their charity office or event and treat like a star - (but whom once regularly visited would dread it.)
He cultivated an image as an eccentric - so that his unusual activities and behaviours could be "explained away."
 
That's one hell of a stat! Mind you, by the time I'm 65 myself, my house might be worth an amount that seems far-fetched to me now...

Does household wealth totalling a million quid make you 'a millionaire'? Perhaps technically, but not in my book.

This seems more a product of our insane housing marking than any actual increase in disposable income and the tangible trappings of wealth.

I tend to think 'a millionaire' ought to have 'a million' in liquid assets--he or she could have it on your desk in cash by Monday morning without selling all of his worldly possessions.
 
I used to be a teenage girl and I don't find it astonishing at all. It seemed to be entirely up to us to not get predated by rapists because if we were, that was our fault. And if you look at what has been happening in Rotherham etc, it still is.
Spot on.

Also up North, at least, some of his reign of terror coincided with Sutcliffe's - it was literally the most hostile environment for young women, imaginable. I dunno how typical we were where I grew up - 14 miles out of Leeds but at least one of the non-canonical survivor victims was attacked very, very close to home, for me - but I was a teen and like many local girls, carried a knife, at one point. All my friends did. Maybe that explains why he started killing students as they'd be more vulnerable even than we were? A random thought.

Anyone remember that disgusting slug Judge Pickles, who blamed a rape victim for wearing a short skirt? If even the judiciary were on the record with attitudes like that (and those comments may have come after Sutcliffe's arrest but were essentially a commonly held view for decades before), what chance did any of us stand?

Also, female (and male) victims and children simply weren't believed by authority. It was in the 70s, my teachers called out the social workers after being alarmed by my stepmother's cruelty and neglect and my account of being hungry etc. Social worker wrote her a polite letter to forewarn her they were coming so the house was tidied up, cakes baking in the oven, real coffee on when SW walked through door. They didn't even speak to me and I was castigated as lying because my account I'd given my teachers, of a house in filth and chaos, no food, verbal abuse, absolute neglect - was contradicted by the "Hail fellow well met" behaviour and the shiny, pristine house. Children were routinely disbelieved and abusers feted and lauded. I wasn't even allowed to be present. And my stepmother's cruelty stepped up exponentially after that as she was so livid she was nearly caught out. My teachers continued to support me and believe me - but those people who could have effected change and took an abusive adult to court - refused to act.

I have never forgotten how abandoned and hopeless it felt. The 70s were shit for kids who were in less than ideal situations.

ETA: Not posting that for sympathy just as a bit of an illustration of a firsthand experience. I think if it had been a sexual predator not just a psychopath, I'd have met with precisely the same reaction from social workers (as my kids did years later when I was a teacher).
 
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Does household wealth totalling a million quid make you 'a millionaire'? Perhaps technically, but not in my book.
Agreed, but I haven't read the article in full, so I don't know if this 20% of over-65s are "technical" millionaires, or "proper" ones.
 
Spot on.

Also up North, at least, some of his reign of terror coincided with Sutcliffe's - it was literally the most hostile environment for young women, imaginable. I dunno how typical we were where I grew up - 14 miles out of Leeds but at least one of the non-canonical survivor victims was attacked very, very close to home, for me - but I was a teen and like many local girls, carried a knife, at one point. All my friends did. Maybe that explains why he started killing students as they'd be more vulnerable even than we were? A random thought.

Anyone remember that disgusting slug Judge Pickles, who blamed a rape victim for wearing a short skirt? If even the judiciary were on the record with attitudes like that (and those comments may have come after Sutcliffe's arrest but were essentially a commonly held view for decades before), what chance did any of us stand?

Also, female (and male) victims and children simply weren't believed by authority. It was in the 70s, my teachers called out the social workers after being alarmed by my stepmother's cruelty and neglect and my account of being hungry etc. Social worker wrote her a polite letter to forewarn her they were coming so the house was tidied up, cakes baking in the oven, real coffee on when SW walked through door. They didn't even speak to me and I was castigated as lying because my account I'd given my teachers, of a house in filth and chaos, no food, verbal abuse, absolute neglect - was contradicted by the "Hail fellow well met" behaviour and the shiny, pristine house. Children were routinely disbelieved and abusers feted and lauded. I wasn't even allowed to be present. And my stepmother's cruelty stepped up exponentially after that as she was so livid she was nearly caught out. My teachers continued to support me and believe me - but those people who could have effected change and took an abusive adult to court - refused to act.

I have never forgotten how abandoned and hopeless it felt. The 70s were shit for kids who were in less than ideal situations.

ETA: Not posting that for sympathy just as a bit of an illustration of a firsthand experience. I think if it had been a sexual predator not just a psychopath, I'd have met with precisely the same reaction from social workers (as my kids did years later when I was a teacher).
Yes indeed - even into the 60's and 70's were generally shit for kids. Even vulnerable at school at the mercy of sadistic teachers and I'm pretty convinced some of them were paedophiles. I was largely unaffected but some weren't. Of course kids still suffer today, and are often ignored by authorities who should be prosecuted as a result. There are signs though that there is some catching up going on, but long overdue.
 
That's one hell of a stat! Mind you, by the time I'm 65 myself, my house might be worth an amount that seems far-fetched to me now...

Yup, I had a book about the band Black Sabbath in the mid-70s which braggily mentioned Tony Iommi's '£20,000 house'! :rollingw:
 
Yes indeed - even into the 60's and 70's were generally shit for kids. Even vulnerable at school at the mercy of sadistic teachers and I'm pretty convinced some of them were paedophiles. I was largely unaffected but some weren't. Of course kids still suffer today, and are often ignored by authorities who should be prosecuted as a result. There are signs though that there is some catching up going on, but long overdue.

Yup, some teachers were just despicable. The ones that were knew which victims to pick on, as all bullies do, and the poor kids copped it.

I got the slapping around/random punishments/humiliation etc and of course didn't report home about it as I'd've then been clobbered at home too.

Once had what I much later realised was a close escape from a sexual assault by a male teacher but as has been pointed out, I wasn't going to report it to anyone because nobody would believe me. Besides which, I didn't know anything at all about sex so had no idea what was going on.
This is the sort of naivety and trust that paedophiles like Savile rely on.
 
Social worker wrote her a polite letter to forewarn her they were coming so the house was tidied up, cakes baking in the oven, real coffee on when SW walked through door. They didn't even speak to me and I was castigated as lying because my account I'd given my teachers, of a house in filth and chaos, no food, verbal abuse, absolute neglect - was contradicted by the "Hail fellow well met" behaviour and the shiny, pristine house. Children were routinely disbelieved and abusers feted and lauded. I wasn't even allowed to be present. And my stepmother's cruelty stepped up exponentially after that as she was so livid she was nearly caught out. My teachers continued to support me and believe me - but those people who could have effected change and took an abusive adult to court - refused to act.

What a total failure to protect you. Makes my blood boil. What was that social worker thinking? Kids have been murdered in those circumstances, when SWs have been fobbed off.

You'll remember Victoria Climbié, who wasn't visited at a dangerous time because the social worker stayed away after she was told there was an outbreak of scabies in the family home.

At least the teachers believed you. They saw you every day and knew you weren't lying.
 
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